


Time Well Spent

by sinsense



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Gen, M/M, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 03:58:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4592070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinsense/pseuds/sinsense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>I’m not going to be interested in things other than hockey when I’m older</em>, Sid thinks fiercely, <em>I’m not going to get married, I’m not having kids.  I’m just going to play hockey.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Well Spent

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://sinsensory.tumblr.com/post/121784804555/i-choose-to-believe-that-anytime-theres-a-rink) on tumblr. Thanks to thecoggs for beta work. Title and two quotes from [this Reebok ad](https://youtu.be/94j-gjc8W0A).
> 
> There are a few homophobic slurs briefly mentioned in the story. Let me know if there are other warnings I should include.

Sid makes the decision not to get married when he’s thirteen.

–-

Mr. Boutilier’s nameplate says _Keith Boutilier, Director, Nova Scotia Minor Hockey Council_. The nameplate is made out of wood, and it has gold lettering. It looks out of place sitting in front of the actual Mr. Boutilier, who is a red-faced guy in a polo shirt and a battered Canadiens cap. He looks like a coach, not like a director. It makes Sid feels confident as he presents his case. Coaches love him. 

He finishes with the line he and his dad agreed on in the car: “I think it’s best not just for me, but for the sport.”

Mr. Boutilier leans forward on his elbows. "That’s good,” he says. Then he turns to Sid’s dad. “Spending a year in Bantam will help Sid’s development.“

Sid’s dad looks over at Sid. Sid says, “I think I’m pretty developed.”

Mr. Boutilier clears his throat. He looks down at the papers on his desk, then back up at Sid’s dad. "A lot of young men think they’re more developed than they are,” he says.

Sid’s mom leans forward. “He scored over two hundred points last season.”

“In seventy games,” his dad adds.

“Sid is a very talented player, and I’m sure that the other players are still adjusting to that,” Mr. Boutilier allows. "But Sid needs to play with kids his own age.“

“The other kids hate me,” Sid says. It comes out a little too raw, but Mr. Boutilier finally meets his eyes.

“You might think you’re ready now, and I know it can be hard, but these boys in Midget are bigger and stronger than you,” he says. He leans back in his chair, lifts his hat and resettles it. “Some of them are getting ready for Major Juniors.”

“I’m getting ready for Major Juniors,” Sid says. He sees his mother shake her head at him out of the corner of his eye, but he plows on. “I have to play with the best players, if I’m going to keep getting better.”

“It’s not just the skill level,” Mr. Boutilier says. He’s back to looking at Sid’s dad again. “It’s normal progression, normal development. You have to think about when he’s older, what he’ll want when he’s interested in things other than hockey, when he wants to get married, have kids, have a life.“

“We appreciate your time,” his dad says. He pushes up out of his chair and holds out his hand. 

Mr. Boutilier looks startled by the abrupt change, but he takes it. “Keep in touch,” he says.

In the hallway, Sid’s mom squeezes his shoulder and says, “I’m sorry.”

“Fucking–-” his dad says, and cuts himself off. “I’m sorry, too.”

“It’s not fair,” Sid says. 

“We’ll talk to the Daily News. I bet Ryan will write something,” his dad says. "And we’ll find you a way to get some competition, I promise.”

When they’re in the car, his dad tries to distract him by asking about school, but Sid gives one-word answers and stares out the window instead. He knows he ought to act better, but he can’t stop thinking about Mr. Boutilier talking about ‘normal.’  
Like Sid’s anywhere near normal. Sid isn’t stupid, he knows he’s not. He’s always going to be different from the other kids. He’s always going to feel this way about hockey. 

_I’m not going to be interested in things other than hockey when I’m older_ , he thinks fiercely, _I’m not going to get married, I’m not having kids. I’m just going to play hockey._

––--

Sid realizes he can’t get married when he’s sixteen.

–-

“Hey bud,” Matt says. He slings his arm around Sid’s shoulders. Their bare sides press together, and Sid has to clutch at his towel to keep it from sliding off. “I forgot to say, that was a nice shot. That last one, the one you actually scored on. That one.”

“One practice where I don’t score,” Sid says.

“One practice,” Matt says, “and you make me stay after until you can get a goal in.”

“You said you wanted to!” Sid says. He elbows Matt in the side, but Matt just slides his arm up to crook it around Sid’s neck, pressing Sid’s cheek against his shoulder. Matt smells like fresh sweat from practice and stale sweat from his pads. It’s acidic and sharp, strong enough to make Sid’s eyes water. Sid takes a deep breath of it and says, “You reek, let me go.”

“That’s a man’s smell,” Matt says, but he unhooks his arm from around Sid’s neck and heads into the showers. Sid follows behind him, tossing his towel onto the bench by the entrance.

It’s weird being alone in the showers. Usually it’s a mob scene, with steam filling the room, guys shouting insults back and forth, jostling each other as they switch in and out from under the shower heads. When Sid twists the water on, the knob squeaks, and it seems to fill the empty room. 

Matt takes a shower head two down from him on the same wall. Sid’s expecting him to pick up the conversation, but Matt just turns on the water and steps under it, dunking his head right away.

Matt’s got a typical goalie body, skinny legs and a little round belly. It would look childish, except that Matt’s taller and hairier than everyone else on the team. He has hair on his toes and the tops of his feet, and his legs and forearms have a fuzzy cloud of dark hair around them. He has thick curly hair under his armpits, and a trail of of it down from his chest to his groin. His pubes are dense, a dark brown tangle that makes his cock look smaller than it is.

Under the water, almost all of Matt’s body hair straightens out, turning into wet streaks on his skin. His pubes are thick enough that they don’t, though, they just get heavier, darker. They’ll get plastered to Matt’s skin when he washes there, but for now– if Sid put his mouth there, the water would run into his mouth, and it would taste like tap water and sweat.

Matt bends down to get his shampoo bottle. Sid jerks his eyes away and half turns so his cock is out of Matt’s line of sight. His breath is too loud. He’s almost all the way hard. It’s normal to get a little hard in the shower, everyone does at some point, but it’s different like this, just the two of them in the quiet, echoing room. 

Sid twists the knob to the left and sucks a breath in at the shock of cooler water.

He doesn’t think about it. He gives himself a perfunctory scrubdown, gets out of the shower and climbs into his clothes. He and Matt have to hustle over to the cafeteria to get dinner before it closes, and then Sid has a study session with Jack. He doesn’t have time to think about it.

That night, though, in the quiet of his dorm room, Sid can’t avoid it.

It doesn’t feel gay. Gay is what other players call him on the ice and in the penalty box; it’s cocksucker, faggot, fairy. That isn’t the same as wanting to see the hair between Matt’s ass cheeks, to cup his hand around Matt’s balls and feel their weight. It isn’t wanting to hold Jack’s hand at the movie theater, or have Jack kiss him goodnight. They seem like distant concepts, light years apart. What he wants feels strangely pure, not something you would spit at a stranger.

Sid’s not stupid, though. It’s gay. He’s– it’s gay. And gay guys can’t get married. Even if they could, gay NHL players don’t get married. And Sid is going to the NHL.

Marriage isn’t for everyone, anyway. Lots of people don’t get married.

They have a game in two days. The night before the night before is the most important one for sleep. So Sid closes his eyes, clears his mind, and goes to sleep.

\--––

“What do you call a life dedicated to hockey?”

-–

“Didn’t I have a tube of toothpaste here?” Ben says. He comes out of the bathroom with his toothbrush in his hand. "It’s expensive toothpaste, I hope you didn’t throw it out.“

Sid rolls his eyes. “It’s in the left-hand drawer.”

“You’re always putting things where I can’t find them,” Ben says, pointing his toothbrush at Sid before he goes back into the bathroom. A moment later, he calls, “I found it!”

It’s such a domestic scene – the quiet sounds of Ben in the bathroom, his familiar accusation, his unnecessary update on the hunt for the toothpaste – and it catches Sid off-guard. It feels for a brief second like they’re married, like Ben lives here, that the side of the bed next to Sid is always rumpled like it is now.

“Do you ever want to get married?” Sid asks, just loud enough that he knows Ben will hear.

There’s a silence, long enough that Sid regrets the question. Ben leans out of the bathroom doorway, toothbrush sticking out of his mouth, eyebrows raised.

“That wasn’t a proposal,” Sid says.

“Thank god. Almost had a heart attack,” Ben says, muffled by toothpaste and toothbrush. He ducks back into the bathroom, and Sid listens to him spit and rinse.

When he comes back out into the bedroom, Ben climbs onto the bed and lies down next to Sid. “What brought that on?” he asks.

“Just popped into my head,” Sid says.

“Huh,” Ben says. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to get married, no.”

“Really?” Sid says. 

“I just never thought about it when I was younger, and now it doesn’t interest me,” Ben says. After a pause, he adds, “My father would love it if I did.”

“He’s big on marriages?” Sid says.

“He tries to act manly about it, but he loves weddings. He’d have a fit. He’d want the biggest synagogue that would have us, biggest reception we could afford.” Ben laughs, softly. "I think he was sad when I came out, because he thought it meant I wouldn’t get married.“

“That makes sense to me,” Sid says.

He can see Ben look over at him out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t look back. Ben says, “You want to get married? That wasn’t a proposal, either.”

“That’s not on the table for me,” Sid says.

“I guess not,” Ben says. "But you wish you could, yeah?“

Sid shrugs. “I’m not sure why I do,” he says, which is as close to a confession as he’s going to get.

“I guess I can see the appeal of it,” Ben says. He props himself up on his elbows. "Marriage is about making sure that the other person is going to be there, even when it would be easier if they weren’t.“

Sid laughs, surprised. “Cynical.”

“It’s right there in the vows,” Ben says. "But I’m saying, I mean that it’s a little romantic, making that kind of promise to someone else. ‘I’ll stick around, even when you decide that you’re going to rehab the bathroom by yourself, and then leave the ceiling ripped out for three months.’ That’s a big commitment.“

“That’s a pretty specific example,” Sid says.

“My mom got a wild hair up her ass about it, bought a bunch of books on carpentry,” Ben says. “She was terrible at it, didn’t know the first thing. Then she decided she was going to go to grad school. My father told me later that it was the one year where he thought about divorce.”

Sid nods. "I heard my mother remind my father that she was the beneficiary on his life insurance once,“ he says.

"Exactly,” Ben says. "But that’s what I’m saying, it’s romantic. You’re in love enough to make that kind of stupid decision. And your friends and family get together and throw you a party for it.“

"I guess,” Sid says.

“It’s true,” Ben says. He leans over and kisses Sid’s cheek, then gets himself up off of the bed. “You done having a crisis?”

“Asshole,” Sid says, without heat.

Ben stoops down to gather up his clothes off of the floor, and drops them on the edge of the bed while he gets dressed. Sid watches him through half-closed eyes. Ben’s body is stretched-looking: tall, skinny at wrists and ankles, long runner’s thighs, slender cock. He does marathons, and eats more carefully than Sid ever has. Sid knows that Ben’s nipples are sensitive, that he likes to be fucked lying flat on his front, that he loves handjobs, that when he’s close to coming he says “fuck fuck fuck” low and hoarse, eyes closed and baring his teeth like he’s in pain. Sid could live with Ben’s body, could see his life with Ben in it. Ben would be a good man to pick a fight with on the phone after a bad loss. It would be good, knowing that Ben would stay, even when Sid was at his most vicious.

Ben tugs down the hem of his shirt and pats his hair flat. "I’m going to grab a Gatorade before I go, okay? You wore me out.“

"Sure,” Sid says. “And thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Ben says. "Text me next week or something, if you’re in town.“

"Yeah, I will,” Sid says.

Sid lies there, listening to Ben getting his things from the living room, the open and shut of the door. The house goes quiet, just the sound of the air conditioning. 

They could get married on the ice, maybe. Custom-made suits. Mike standing behind him, Nate goofily excited at being asked, Flower bitching continuously about everything, Tanger double-checking that Sid doesn’t want to back out. A big party afterward, a huge hall for the hundreds of people they both know. Sid can afford to spend lavishly. 

Sid should get up, since his dick is still sticky with lube and come, and there’s a film of sweat on his skin, but he’s got a rare day off, no workouts or charity work. He closes his eyes and drifts, imagining the cold of the rink and someone’s hand warm in his, saying _yes, bring your best and worst, I’ll be here._

Ben doesn’t want to get married. Sid doesn’t actually want to marry him. It’s just a passing thought. Nothing to dwell on.

\--––

“I call it time well spent.”

–-

The cameras flash, and Gary says, “Okay Sid, take it away.”

The Cup is slippery in his hands until he gets it over his head, and then the weight rests comfortably on his palms and shoulders. He turns to show it to the crowd. They scream, and he screams back, high and cracking.

When he looks up, his reflection in the metal is a blurry smear, pocked with the names of players.

 _I would give you anything,_ he thinks, and brings it down to press it against his mouth.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Time Well Spent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4599825) by [brezcu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brezcu/pseuds/brezcu)




End file.
